A 5-year Tracer Medicines Availability Trend in the Obstetrics Gynecology Department of a Teaching Hospital
Justice Dogbey1, Amah Nkansah1, Victoria Adjei1 Diana-Adu Mintaah1 Stella Ayimuka1, Emil Brookman-Amissah1,Daniel Ankrah1
1 Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, P.O. Box KB 77 Accra, Ghana.
August (2023) pp 1-10 DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/gpj.2023101
Published online 31st August 2023.
© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license
ABSTRACT
Background
Medications are indispensable in women’s healthcare. Yet, there are barriers to their availability. Tracer medicines (TMs), as a representative subset of Essential Medicines (EMs) was pioneered by the World Health Organization (WHO) with a 100% expected availability benchmark. Managing the availability of TMs is a determinant of pharmacy performance, access to medicines and healthcare quality. There is paucity of studies on the availability of TMs in an obstetrics and Gynecology unit of a hospital.
Aim
The aim of the study was to assess availability of TMs in in an Obstetrics Gynecology (O &G) Department of a Teaching Hospital.
Methodology
The study was conducted on the 31st of January each year from 2019 to 2023 at the O & G department of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. Data collected were analyzed using a modified WHO/ Health Action International (WHO/HAI) methodology to review TM availability only. The original WHO/HAI methodology reviews TM prices, availability and affordability. TM is available if physically existent and unexpired on the day of survey.
Results
At the O & G, there are 21 molecules that are classified as TM. For the years 2020, 2021 and 2023, all 21 molecules were 100% available on the day of the survey. In 2019 and 2022, 85.7% and 90.5% availability were recorded. Specific TMs that recorded some stock outs were Injections Ephedrine 30mg, Injection Magnesium sulphate 50%, Injection pethidine 100mg, Injection Vitamin K 1mg, as well as Tetracycline eye ointment.
Conclusion
Availability of TMs for women’s healthcare was less than 100% expected benchmark on some occasions. Policies are needed to improve availability, through an improved management of tracer medicines. A hospital-wide survey of more specialties is desirable for a wider view of access to TMs.
Keywords: Tracer Medicine, Availability, expected benchmark
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.